Life's a BOTCH

It's all going wrong, says my naughty little sister

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‘I am so bored,’ said my sister Deb, and immediately I was whisked off to my childhood when she often said the same thing.

‘Rose,’ my mother would say. ‘Take your sister out to play.’

‘But it's raining.’

‘Rain never hurt anybody.’

‘What am I supposed to do with her?’

‘I don’t mind what you do, as long as you're not under my feet and as long as you're not getting into mischief.’

If only my mother knew that getting into mischief was my sister's specialist subject. Not only that, but she did it with some skill.

Other children might have punctured the bicycle tyre of our teacher Miss Iles with a drawing pin, casting suspicion on the usual suspects.

It took a little imagination to use a large rose thorn. Because no child would think of that, would they?

Anyway, back to the modern world and it’s still raining outside. We are sitting in Deb's front room, which overlooks the park, and we are gazing out of the window.

‘I sometimes feel that life is passing me by,’ said Deb, which is not at all like her.